11/17/2012

Navarra?

Dear Friends,

I've taken a long lacuna from my incredibly busy day job and am now free to go back to an idyllic renaissance of writing, thinking, acting, drinking, pondering ... such as how I lived in France when I started these emails.

Today I helped out in the Far Rockaways. A freezing cold rain hovered over a queue stretched endlessly of those waiting for donated coats, coffee, muffins. I made the kids laugh being the muffin lady. It's amazing what simple luxury there is in being warm and fed. Sipping something enchanting while reading fireside seemed miles away today.

I recently imbibed a very fall-weather wine from Navarra. Spanish wine and I have never been particularly synchronous -- except for the creamy but crisp Ruedas and some of those old Riojas. Navarra, however, has such a fascinating vinous history that I am quite frankly remorseful for ere
overlooking the region. In these long days of leisure I have been thumbing through Shakespeare, who refers to Ferdinand the King of Navarre, and so I looked up the history of Navarre -- to find that this region mirrors the Basques, whose wines I love. The vines were planted originally by the
Romans in 2 B.C. and straddle the Pyrenees by virtue of descending slopes down to the river Ebro.

In my lifetime, Navarra, which is the official Denominación de Origen, has been producing mostly bulk wine and rose, but I had hence noticed that the capability of the reds was quite positive. And then I ran into a transcendent wine with a few years on it, and the room stopped.

My friend J.T. opened a bottle of Bodegas Ochoa, located in the walled portion of the city of Olite, mostly of Tempranillo and some Cabernet and Merlot; (we are not far from Bordeaux). Limestone and clay soils house roughly 22-year-old vines. To be a Reserva, the wines calms down in French
oak for a year and is released 4 years after the vintage. The '04 was so complex and accomplished, I wrote something to the flowery effect of: "As the fall leaves descend upon us, the air grows crisp, time for fermentation, winding down, reflection .... This truly is a library wine meant to be drunk among old volumes, leaving the vigorous fruity summery youth behind. We have a wine that has matured into a wiser version of itself, dried cherries, structured but soft tannins, perfume, silk, elegance ...."